Articles
Maxwell Systems Improving Estimates
“The construction market in our region is about 10 years behind the curve,” explained Carlos Santoyo, Electrical Estimator at Border Electric/Mechanical, a leader in electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and HVAC commercial construction in El Paso and Southern New Mexico. “Everything is just now going to AutoCAD and BIM (Building Information Modeling) because of the influx of the military in the area and its need to incorporate these technologies into its facilities.”
Creating estimates manually was a time-consuming and arduous process for the estimators at Border EM. “For simple projects, it could take us four to five hours to create an estimate and for larger jobs, like hospitals, it could take us three weeks,” explained Santoyo.
Not only was it time consuming, but the manual process was also prone to errors. “Accuracy is very important on every construction project,” said Santoyo. “Now, with the military being one of our largest customers, being exact is a must. Our military customers have very stringent practices and specifications and there is no room for mistakes.”
With Maxwell Systems Estimation Logistics, Border EM uses a complete estimating solution that ties together estimates, labor needs, and cost analysis. The Estimation Logistics Electrical software bundle that is specifically designed for electrical contractors, Border EM is able to automate its bidding process and improve its productivity.
With Estimation Logistics, Border EM can now generate takeoffs directly from digital plan files instead of using bulky paper blueprints. Once the plans are loaded in the system, the estimators can easily measure, count, or both; then choose their cost item or assembly from the Estimation Logistics database. With the variety of built-in assemblies that can be taken off in a single touch and the ability to create custom assemblies, there is a significant reduction in the time it takes to develop an estimate.
By capturing the graphical takeoff on its digital plans, Border EM can easily modify details such as assemblies or fixture counts. And, the overlay feature in Estimation Logistics enables estimators to compare different versions of their plans if major changes are made.
“Estimation Logistics is easy to use. For little projects, there is essentially no setup required and for larger projects, such as a military headquarters or office complex, the setup takes just a day or so,” explained Santoyo. “We can easily build the picture, drop in the assembly, and review mechanical sheets, for example. Then we provide the total counts of the fixtures and simply drag and drop those fixtures as we go through the plan,” said Santoyo. “If we miss something in the plan, we can just fill it in. We don’t have to build it all over again. It is simple click and drag and we can always go into the summary and make adjustments on the spot.”
Border EM has been able to easily customize the estimating solution to meet its specific business needs. “We haven’t had to change the way we do business to fit the technology,” said Santoyo. “Estimation Logistics offered us a good place to start and we were able to add our own conduit runs and new assemblies, for example, based on our company’s center of best practices and focus on key features of the solution that streamline our particular processes.”
By automating the bidding process with Estimation Logistics, Border EM has been able improve productivity, gain more control over its estimates, produce more accurate and professional estimates, analyze pricing, lower costs associated with bidding, and win more jobs. For more information visit: www.maxwellsystems.com.

